Body fillers for 1980-85 Seville

[Barry M Wheeler #2189]

I wisely chose to have my local body shop tackle the job of installing the rear body fillers on my 1981 Seville. The guy called me, yesterday afternoon about ready to toss the whole kit and kaboodle out the door because of it warping outward when tightened the way it comes from the seller. He called to get permission to trim the item, which I readily gave. They are now both nearly done and fit reasonably well. You do have to discard the metal supports used originally, and redo the stainless attaching clamp a little.

Did I mention the bumper does have to come off as well as the tail lamps? I asked if I could come down this morning and polish the underside of the bumper while it is off. He said I could do so, making this job about 200% easier than lying on the ground/floor doing it. I found that by using steel wool, that the thirty four year old screws on the bottom still had black paint on them.

It is amazing how many time you have to go over a "clean" piece of chrome to get all the gunk from it.

I learned from this experience that if you ever undertake to purchase one of these cars, and it need "plastic", you have about $750 bargaining room to replace the broken items. $450 to buy the parts and I'm scared to think what it's going to cost to have Bill do the installation.

[76eldo]

Barry

You have to let these guys know that the need to egg out the mounting holes and forget the standard parts hanger mentality because these fillers never fit without modifications.

Brian